A thoughtful approach to designing and selling albums from Pennsylvania-based Angelique, of our support team. - Ed. There seem to be two primary approaches to album sales, three if you include not bothering (let's not go there). The first approach, popular recently, is Pre-Design. Design the be-all, end-all of albums before your clients even see their images and you'll make a fortune! How could they possibly say no to a 60 side gorgeous 10x18 Duo masterpiece once they see it? Well…because what you included in their contact was a 10x10 flush mount album with 20 sides. That hardly seems fair. To View More >>

Back in 1996 Heather and I walked into the beautiful Hotel Metropole in Hanoi for lunch, and I don't think the staff were pleased to see us. We'd been back-packing around Vietnam for two weeks, we looked the part, and we'd brought our packs with us! Not normal for fine dining, even at lunchtime. But the staff very nicely gave us a table, and waited for us to order the (very affordable) lunchtime special. Instead, we proceeded to make up for two weeks of roughing it. We ate everything we could fit in, and then some. It was fantastic. Meantime the suits and the frocks around us looked mildly disapproving, To View More >>

I don't like long posts, and I'm always at Ian and Nigel to keep 'em brief so I apologize. This recent post prompted Ken to comment and me to respond with this, my longest ever... Ken asked whether our industry's main challenge wasn't "crap photography" but competitors with stupid pricing, for example, "2 photographers, hi-res images and Queensberry with 60 images for £1500." Ken suggested that people like that shouldn't last in business but they keep coming back... So I presume that if in fact they're surviving, they're probably a high volume, low margin outfit - possibly with healthy post-event To View More >>

I'm looking forward to David Ziser dropping the other shoe in a couple of days. On scottkelby.com last week, in the first of two parts, he blogged about the "perfect storm" that he says has impacted wedding photography over the last few years. If you haven't read it you should. Factors David mentions include the Great Recession, the "Walmart Effect" – everything from consumers' ingrained cut-price mentality to the fact that "wedding photography has come to Walmart" (via the acquisition of Bella Photography by CPI Corporation). Plus of course the growth of digital photography (not just digital To View More >>

More from Mark Miller: Press books - I agree with everything you say. At Focus I had a great conversation with Danny who suggested that 'everyone' did digital, ie it was commonplace with suppliers but that Duos were the really unique albums. I agree. Aren't QBY digital albums really just a fancier, more expensive press-book? Again, that's not meant to be insulting, I'm just trying to add to the conversation. FWIW, I've stopped offering digital albums (other than mini copies) and will move to a Duo only offering for next season. No offence taken. I love our digital albums, and so do many of our To View More >>